Devlog 005: Gabriel's Flight in Grey Box

Tonight we walked the Holy Place, checked it stop by stop against its sources, and built Segment 1’s flight in grey box: simple shapes, before any final art.

The tour: eight stops, eight matches

We toured eight stops and checked each one’s size against its source, at 52.5 cm to the cubit. All eight matched:

• The row of stones between the Court of Israel and the Court of the Priests: 135 cubits long (Mishnah, Middot 2:6).
• The altar of burnt offering: 32 by 32 cubits (Middot 3:1).
• The twelve steps up to the porch, half a cubit high, with their level spaces (Middot 3:6).
• The porch doorway: 40 cubits high, 20 wide (Middot 3:7).
• The doorway into the Holy Place: 20 high, 10 wide, with its four doors (Middot 4:1).
• The table and the lampstand: the table on the north side and the lampstand opposite it on the south (Exodus 26:35).
• The altar of incense: square, a cubit by a cubit, two cubits high (Exodus 30:2).
• Gabriel’s mark, “standing at the right side of the altar of incense” (Luke 1:11).

Playtest 1

Our first walk through the level is logged. The controls work and we reached Gabriel’s mark. Two things were hard to see: the row of stones was white on a white floor, and the four doors lay flush against a wall of the same white. Both now have their own colour so they show. That colour is grey box only, not a claim about the real Temple. The four horns of the altar of incense are now joined to it, so they move as one piece. For playtests only, the walking camera can zoom out to about 15 m. It’s left out of every packaged build, so it’s never a player control.

Gabriel’s flight, in grey box

Gabriel starts high above the Temple, in light. God is never shown as a figure, only light. Below him, 115 prayer streams rise from the people praying in the courts: “the whole congregation was praying outside” (Luke 1:10). One stream is gold and set apart: Zechariah’s, the prayer Gabriel carries the answer to, “your prayer has been heard” (Luke 1:13). The flight ends at his mark beside the altar. Gabriel has no wings; scripture never gives him any. How the prayers look rising is art, and it’s labeled as art.

The flight is built, but nobody has flown it yet.

Tonight’s passage

Luke 1:26–38: Gabriel’s next mission, sent to Nazareth to a virgin named Mary.

Next

Playtest 2: flying as Gabriel, from the light down to the right side of the altar. Then we check two engine warnings the new streams raised, about shadows and lighting.